Ross: When kneeling for the anthem is no longer enough
Sep 11, 2020, 7:08 AM | Updated: 11:00 am
A moment of silence taken before the Chiefs/Texans NFL season opener. (Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
The NFL season started last night – Kansas City versus Houston. Chiefs won, 16,000 fans showed up, and you could almost pretend it was football as usual.
But … not quite. Instead of one anthem, there were two – the NFL is adding “Lift Every Voice” beginning in Week 1. And stenciled on either end of the field were the words “End racism,” and “It takes all of us.”
During huddles you could see names on the backs of players’ helmets: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd.
The Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes appeared in a hopeful Adidas commercial.
“We’ll be playing sports, but at the same time we’re gonna be taking action and we’re gonna be making change in this world so that it’s a better place when we leave it,” Mahomes said in the ad.
But at the same time, other players aren’t buying it.
Eighteen players for the Miami Dolphins appeared in this video:
BREAKING NEWS: The@MiamiDolphins players will stay inside for both national anthems. They express their discontentment with what they call “fluff and empty gestures” by the @NFL pic.twitter.com/ghUktHhPt9
— Jay Williams (@RealJayWilliams) September 10, 2020
“Lift Every Voice and sing is just a way to save face,” one player says in the video.
“So if my dad was a soldier, but the cops killed my brother, do I stand for one anthem, and kneel for the other?” another posited.
And so, they won’t be on the field for either anthem.
“This attempt to unify only creates more divide, so we’ll skip the song and dance, and as a team we’ll stay inside.”
It sounds like these issues are not going away. And to think that once upon a time, people were freaked out by taking a knee.
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